Man in hospital with COVID-19 after receiving Johnson & Johnson vaccine

By Elizabeth Rosner

 

A New Jersey man is in the hospital with COVID-19 — just five weeks after being vaccinated.

Francisco Cosme, 52, was ecstatic when he booked an appointment for the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the Javits Center on March 6.

After Cosme was vaccinated, he continued to wear a mask and follow social distancing guidelines but he became “very confused and began doing things that were not normal,” his daughter, Michelle Torres, told The Post.  

“April 1 was the very first day he started to have symptoms,” Torres said. “He had a cough, fever, chills, everything.”

The 31-year-old drove her father to a clinic where he tested positive for COVID-19 and he was instructed to quarantine for 10 days.

Francisco Cosme, the New Jersey man who was hospitalized with COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated.

Michelle Torres

Last week, his condition worsened and Torres noticed he had trouble breathing and called 911 during a visit to his home in Edison, New Jersey.

After giving Cosme oxygen, the ambulance crew rushed him to John F. Kennedy Medical Center, where he is in critical condition and is also being treated for pneumonia.

“I’m trying to hold it together, every day you don’t know what is happening,” said a tearful Torres.

“The doctor said they did all they can do it and it’s up to him to fight and up to God.”

Torres told The Post her mother, husband and children ended up testing positive for COVID and are in quarantine until next Sunday.

“We survived the whole year without it [vaccine] doing all the things we are supposed to so do — social distancing, washing hands and masking up,” she explained.

“It’s crazy and we need answers,” Torres concluded.

The Post also reported that a Brooklyn woman who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the Javits Center on March 10 contracted COVID-19.

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Man in hospital with COVID-19 after receiving Johnson & Johnson vaccine

Family reunions in one senior assisted living facility

 

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Family reunions in one senior assisted living facility

NC changes COVID vaccine eligibility, will offer it to everyone age 65 and older

By Richard Stradling and Adam Wagner 

 

The Friday Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. has been put to use in distributing both Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines to now daily 600 seniors who are in Group 1 of Phase 1b, open to patients age 65 and older. By Casey Toth

North Carolina will make COVID-19 vaccines available to anyone age 65 and older and all health care workers, regardless of whether they are exposed to coronavirus patients, the state announced Thursday.

The new eligibility rules partially match a change in guidelines announced by the federal government on Tuesday. Alex Azar, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said vaccinating everyone 65 and older would be simpler and make the process go faster.

Under North Carolina’s previous phased system for distributing the vaccine, people age 75 and older were eligible to get inoculated starting last week. Hospitals and counties have been scheduling their first clinics for people in that age group, and so far demand has far outstripped available supply in most areas.

Gov. Roy Cooper first announced the change Thursday to members of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners. It is also now reflected on the state Department of Health and Human Services’ vaccination website, yourspotyourshot.nc.gov.

North Carolina started distributing vaccine last month for hospitals to administer to front-line employees who work with and around COVID-19 patients. A federal program, run through CVS and Walgreens, also began inoculating residents and employees of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

Now, all health care personnel who work around patients are eligible.

The new criteria put people age 65 and older ahead of other front-line essential workers, such as firefighters and teachers. Under the old plan, the next groups to qualify for vaccination after people 75 and older would have been front-line health care workers and essential workers age 50 and older followed by front-line health and essential workers of any age.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state Secretary of Health and Human Services, says the state’s goal is to make the prioritization plan easier to understand and execute. North Carolina shifted to a simplified system with five groups, doing away with different phases and built-in subcategories that were to be used to prioritize who gets the vaccine.

“We know there has been more confusion than there needs to be, and so we are definitely hearing the message about simplicity and speed,” Cohen said. “That’s why we’re trying to really be clear: What we’re vaccinating right now is all health care workers and those 65 and older.”

Registration information is collected from seniors lined up in their vehicles to get their COVID vaccine shot during a drive-thru COVID vaccination clinic at North Johnston High School in Kenly, N.C., Thursday, January 14, 2021. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com

Competition for limited vaccine supply increases

The change will widen the pool of people now seeking vaccination, making the competition for the limited supplies of vaccine more fierce. Joan Seymour of Cary, who is 79, said this will make it even harder for her to get her shot now.

“Wake County isn’t even setting up appointments until 19 January,” Seymour wrote in an email. “Now I’ll have to contest appointments with additional millions over 65. It’s not fair.”

There are just more than a million North Carolinians between 65 and 74 years old, according to estimates from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management. 

DHHS previously estimated that there are about 435,000 people in North Carolina older than 75. The health department also estimated that there are an additional 292,000 direct health care workers who were not initially eligible to receive vaccine.

Many doctors and others in health care support the change, said Tatyana Kelly, vice president of planning, strategy and member services for the N.C. Healthcare Association, which represents all 130 hospitals in the state.

The health problems that make people vulnerable to COVID-19 often begin at age 65, Kelly said. And, she said, only vaccinating people 75 and older leaves out a disproportionate number of people of color or with low incomes who have lower life expectancy on average.

“We really need to focus on making sure those in marginalized and under-served communities can get the vaccine quickly,” Kelly said. “You have a higher ratio of people, to be honest, who are white in the age 75 and up group.”

Kelly said there already isn’t enough vaccine to go around, and that won’t change with the new criteria. Like everyone involved in the vaccination process, she urged patience.

Since vaccine distribution began a month ago, North Carolina’s total allocation has been 706,075 first doses; both vaccines require two doses. That’s more than a million doses less than it would take to vaccinate everyone who’s now eligible.

Cohen acknowledged that vaccine remains in limited supply. She said the state is now receiving about 120,000 doses a week and that it’s working with hospitals, health departments and others to get all of it to people within seven days.

“We have less vaccine in our state than the number of people who are eligible to get it at this moment,” she said. “For those who are 65 years and older, you could get vaccine starting now, but that doesn’t mean vaccine is available for you today or an appointment is available for you today.”

Demand exceeds supply

Katye Griffin, the executive director of the N.C. Association of Local Health Directors, agreed with Cohen, warning that the high demand for vaccine is already outpacing the limited supply for those who already have made an appointment to receive the vaccine.

“We may need a week or two to incorporate newly revised groups and guidance since appointments and events have already been scheduled,” Griffin said.

In New Hanover County, for example, the health department announced that appointments were booked through Friday with people 75 and older. When the department receives next week’s shipment, it plans to open appointments to those who became eligible with Thursday’s announcement.

UNC Health set up 15 vaccination clinics in 12 counties this week and says its ability to inoculate people is limited by the availability of vaccine. Spokesman Alan Wolf said the health system will adjust its screening and scheduling system to allow those 65 to 74 to make appointments.

Those appointments were already full this week. Still, UNC applauds the state for broadening its eligibility criteria, Wolf said.

“We continue to see too many older adults who are getting really sick and ending up in our hospitals,” he said.

Allan Goldberg of Raleigh doesn’t want to join them. Goldberg, 76, says he’s a heart attack and cancer survivor who tried to schedule a vaccination at Duke Health and UNC, and learned the only appointments available were in Kinston. He thinks the vaccine rollout has been poorly handled and doesn’t see why the priorities should be changed.

“With 65-and-overs now eligible, they can have the thrill of joining me in the ‘no appointments available’ queue,” Goldberg wrote in an email.

Advice from federal government shifts

The change in guidance from the federal government caught state officials off guard on Tuesday. Cohen says the state developed its plan based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and said her office would quickly review the changes.

Cooper expressed frustration Tuesday with the timing of the new directive.

“One of the continuing problems we have had with the federal government is that they have continued to shift their advice on what the priorities of the vaccine should be,” Cooper said at a press conference two hours after Azar announced the changes in Washington.

The wider criteria are part of a broader federal strategy to increase the pace of vaccinations, which have lagged nationwide.

Azar said the federal government would ship all the vaccine it currently has on hand, rather than holding some back for the second doses that both vaccines require. He said production has become reliable enough that the second doses can be shipped straight from manufacturers to the states.

Azar also announced that in two weeks the federal government will begin allocating vaccine to the states based on the number of residents 65 and older and on what percentage of a state’s previous vaccine shipments have been given out.

Azar said his department would like to see states broaden the distribution channels for vaccinations to include pharmacies and mass inoculation events.

On Thursday, the state Department of Health and Human Services announced large community vaccination events in 21 counties, including Wake, Mecklenburg, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston. Links to the websites of the organizations putting on the events can be found, listed by county, at covid19.ncdhhs.gov/findyourspot.

Watch as hundreds of seniors, 75 and over, line up in their vehicles to get their COVID-19 vaccine shot at West Johnston High School in Benson, N.C., early Tuesday morning, January 12, 2021. By Ethan Hyman

 

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article248458760.html/video-embed/amp/newsobserver/248501800/1#amp=1#storylink=cpy

People with underlying health problems must wait

North Carolina is not adopting all of the eligibility criteria recommended by the Trump administration. Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield also urged states to begin vaccinating anyone under 65 who has a documented health condition that makes them vulnerable to COVID-19.

Under the state’s new vaccination system, people age 16 to 64 with “high-risk medical conditions that increase risk of severe disease from COVID-19” will be eligible to get the vaccine in Group 4, after front-line workers.

John Welfare of Waxhaw said he is angry that the state decided to make people 65 and older eligible for vaccine now but not younger people like himself with underlying health problems.

“I have a highly compromised immune system and COPD, but now hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy people just jumped in front of me while I am a sitting duck for this horrible disease,” Welfare wrote in an email. “This is grotesquely unfair and infuriating.”

Cohen ended her press conference by noting that some sort of prioritization system is necessary because of the limited supply. She said if North Carolina used all the vaccine at its disposal, only about 6% of the state’s 10.5 million residents would get at least an initial dose.

“Which means we have to do the work we’ve done all year long, which is wear a mask, stay socially distant and wash your hands often,” she said. “Please do stay home and only go out for essential business. Remember, there is a lot of virus here in North Carolina.”

 

Members of the North Carolina National Guard help Forsyth County Department of Public Health and its residents with the COVID-19 vaccination as the NCNG assists the state's health departments to expand coronavirus immunization efforts. By North Carolina National Guard

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NC changes COVID vaccine eligibility, will offer it to everyone age 65 and older

3 in 5 Ohio nursing home workers have refused the coronavirus vaccine; we asked why

(Getty Images)

CEDARVILLE — Three out of every five long-term care facility workers in Ohio have refused the coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday.

Many remain skeptical about the vaccine’s safety, health officials said, while others are chilled by deep-seated distrust of government or even fringe conspiracies of malicious intent.

The rate of refusals is based on anecdotal reports from statewide vaccination clinics, the governor said during a briefing on the state’s coronavirus response Wednesday. By then, agencies across the state had yet to make use of even a fifth of about 529,000 vaccine doses shipped thus far.

Though the partnering pharmacies administering the vaccine in Ohio’s nursing homes — in the Mahoning Valley, that’s Walgreens and CVS — are “on track” to finish up their first round of vaccines in the next couple of weeks, “the bigger concern is the number of staff that are not taking it,” DeWine said Wednesday.

DeWine conferred on Christmas Eve about the refusals with the Ohio Health Care Association, which represents more than 1,000 long-term care facilities statewide, said Executive Director Pete Van Runkle.

At some of the association’s member facilities, all staff have accepted the vaccine; at others, only a fifth, he said.

Anecdotally, most of workers’ concerns are about safety — whether this brand new vaccine, which was brought to bear at unprecedented speed, has yet-unknown long-term side effects; specifically, an impact on the reproductive system — but some concerns swing into the wild fringe.

He’s also heard anecdotal reports that workers believe the vaccine contains a microchip or that it will somehow negatively affect minorities — “stuff that floats around on social media … it strikes one as craziness,” he said.

“It becomes somewhat of a political issue. There’s folks that are anti-vaccination for political reasons, too,” Van Runkle said. “It’s a challenging issue. We knew it was before all this started. There’s just so much sentiment out there, just in the general public, of people who are skeptical about the vaccine.”

Since the start of vaccine distribution in Ohio, Bobbi Terwilliger, a representative with the Youngstown-based Teamsters Local 377, has been fielding questions from her members about the vaccine’s safety.

She represents nursing home staff like nurse aides and kitchen workers who are part of Ohio’s first vaccination group, Phase 1A, and among the first in the world to receive the vaccine.

When members call seeking additional information, Terwilliger advises them to reach out to their pharmacists; she noted CVS and Walgreens have done a good job of getting information to people with questions.

“Put it in simple terms for them,” she said. After a year of being inundated with horrifying studies and statistics about COVID-19, “it’s just a matter of speaking to people in plain English.”

She advises employers of places like nursing homes to approach workers who have concerns and ask about them.

“It might be something simple,” she said. “Give it a shot. Maybe it would make it a little more palatable.”

When it comes to the anxiety and confusion, Terwilliger blames the hyper-partisan political atmosphere and stigma around public health measures like masks and vaccines. 

People are being coy about whether they’ve had the virus or gotten the vaccine, she said, fearing backlash from others online.

“There’s a lot of stigma created from our president down, about mask-wearing and all this other garbage to the point that people just don’t want to be harassed,” she said. 

After receiving wildly mixed messages from politicians throughout the entire pandemic, people are looking for understandable information and don’t know where to turn.

“People are not trusting anything that’s coming out of the state and out of the federal government. They’re just scared of putting this in their body. They don’t know what they should do," Terwilliger said.

The association is trying to counteract misinformation with new educational materials on vaccine science — “mythbusting,” Van Runkle said. Facilities are also finding success with internally released videos featuring caregivers who give their reasons for taking the vaccine, he said.

Some facilities have even resorted to incentivizing vaccination rate goals with random prize drawings.

“It can’t just be left to happenstance,” Van Runkle said. “We have to continue our leadership of our facilities. Our members have to continue to try to find ways to educate and convince.”

Long-term care facility residents, however, have widely been more accepting of the vaccine, typically 90 percent from facility to facility, he said.

“That’s obviously a defense for those residents. Even if that staff member comes in and is infectious, the residents aren’t gonna get it,” he said. “The other part is to redouble our efforts to convince staff they need to participate.”

Long-term care facility residents make up 52 percent of all confirmed and probable COVID-19 deaths in Trumbull County; 55 percent of the deaths in Columbiana; and 65 percent of the deaths in Mahoning.

The hospice care facility housing Renee Ciotti’s 92-year-old mother is due to receive its first shipment of the coronavirus vaccine on Jan. 12, Ciotti said.

For seven months, Ciotti, of Salem, had been driving to her mother’s Streetsboro assisted-living facility during two-hour windows in the morning and afternoon, for 20-minute visits. Since transitioning her mother into hospice care, she’s been able to visit regularly and has heard similar concerns about the vaccine from caregivers who have turned it down.

“I would certainly wish all of them would get the vaccine. It would relieve a lot of stress for residents and families,” she told Mahoning Matters. “I do, however, understand why some of the younger females would refuse.

“Some might want to start a family and are unsure of the side effects down the road.”

In that regard, Van Runkle pointed to reports of women who conceived during the coronavirus vaccine trials.

Since the federal vaccine rollout for nursing homes is being done in three visits, he hopes those who turned it down on the first visit will “see their coworkers didn’t suffer any ill effects, or at least anything that will convince them to step up on the second round.”

For those who pass it up entirely, DeWine warned it’s unclear when the currently scarce vaccine may come around again.

“We aren’t going to make them, but we wish they had a higher compliance,” he said Wednesday. “Our message today is the train may not be coming back for a while.”

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3 in 5 Ohio nursing home workers have refused the coronavirus vaccine; we asked why 

Alzheimer’s Vaccine to Cut Cases in Half

By Elizabeth Nelson

Alzheimer’s is an epidemic in our world today, and the number of cases is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. 5.7 million Americans suffer from the disease currently, and there may be double that number by 2050, according to the University of Texas. In an effort to keep that from happening, experts have been working on treatments and preventative methods for the disease for decades. And this time, they think they may actually have found the answer.

A team of researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has concocted a vaccine they believe will prevent Alzheimer’s cases, effectively cutting the number of cases of dementia in half. So far, the vaccine has shown promise in animal testing, safely producing antibodies to guard against the buildup of unwanted amyloid and tau proteins in the brains of mice, rabbits, and monkeys. The researchers’ findings have been published in the journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.

Photo: Adobe Stock/Adam Gregor

The team hopes their vaccine will soon be able to move on to human trials. And if it’s successful there, it will quickly move on to production and be placed on the market, where it will be useful to millions of people wishing to stave off dementia.  

This study marks a significant progress toward a safe and successful method of Alzheimer’s prevention, and it’s the first of its kind to be this effective without any noticeable side effects, such as brain inflammation. Even if the vaccine isn’t fully effective in preventing Alzheimer’s, it might at least be useful for staving off the disease for a short time.

“If the onset of the disease could be delayed by even five years, that would be enormous for the patients and their families,” said Doris Lambracht-Washington, a professor of neurology and neurotherapeutics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Photo: Adobe Stock/sudok1

Of course, this vaccine won’t get rid of dementia entirely, even if it’s fully successful. Dementia is simply the broad description for the symptoms of cognitive decline, but there are many causes. Alzheimer’s disease is only one of those causes, which accounts for about half of dementia cases.

However, even small steps in the right direction are more than we’ve had in the past and offer immense hope for the future. We hope this team has great success with their vaccine and is able to make it available to the public soon!

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Alzheimer’s Vaccine to Cut Cases in Half

New Alzheimer's vaccine 'could reduce dementia cases by half'

SALT LAKE CITY — (KUTV) — A DNA vaccine, tested on mice, which could have a major impact on the development of Alzheimer' disease, may soon be headed to clinical trials in humans.

According to a new study published in Alzheimer's Research and Therapy, the experimental vaccine reduced the accumulation of two types of toxic proteins believed to be a cause of Alzheimer's, without any adverse effects like brain swelling.

The decade-long study was conducted by The University of Texas Southwestern's Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute.

“If the onset of the disease could be delayed by even five years, that would be enormous for the patients and their families,” said Dr. Doris Lambracht-Washington, the study’s senior author. “The number of dementia cases could drop by half."

Earlier promising vaccines caused "severe brain swelling" in some patients.

{p}Toxic amyloid plaques (red) and tau tangles (brown) form on the brain of a mouse modeled to have Alzheimer’s disease. A study shows a DNA vaccine reduces both amyloid and tau in the mouse AD model, with no adverse immune responses. (Photo: UT Southwestern){/p}

The skin-delivered vaccine activates an immune response which reduces build-up of harmful tau and beta-amyloids.

“This study is the culmination of a decade of research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this vaccine can effectively and safely target in animal models what we think may cause Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Roger Rosenberg, founding Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at UT Southwestern. “I believe we’re getting close to testing this therapy in people.”

Drs. Roger Rosenberg, left, and Doris Lambracht-Washington have developed a DNA vaccine that can reduce in mice both toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The vaccine has been tested in three mammals with no adverse immune response.(Photo: UT Southwestern)

So far, it has been safely tested in three mammals and that could soon pave the way to clinical trials.

"The vaccine is on a shortlist of promising antibody treatments aimed at protecting against both types of proteins that kill brain cells as they spread in deadly plaques and tangles on the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients," a news release from UT Southwestern stated.

Alzheimer's progressively deteriorates the brain in roughly 5.7 million American patients. That number is expected to double by 2050, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Right now, there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer's.

The new study says the vaccine may be most effective in patients with high levels of "tau and amyloid stored in the brain," but before the patient has fully developed Alzheimer's.

“The longer you wait, the less effect it will probably have,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “Once those plaques and tangles have formed, it may be too late.”

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New Alzheimer's vaccine 'could reduce dementia cases by half'

New Vaccine Could Cut Number Of Alzheimer's Cases In Half

A new Alzheimer's vaccine developed by scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern could conceivably cut the number of dementia cases in half.

Unlike a previous attempt that caused swelling in the brain when DNA was injected into the test mice's muscles, the new vaccine was administered by injecting it superficially into the skin.

Alzheimer’s, which is expected to strike triple the number of people by 2050, cripples the brain as human beings age, as beta-amyloid proteins in the brain get stuck together and tau proteins start to tangle, both of which inhibit neural connections. The new vaccine, injected into the skin, triggers the skin cells to produce a three-molecule chain of beta-amyloid. The immune system is then catalyzed to produce antibodies to fight beta-amyloid; the antibodies also fight tau proteins. This means the body anticipates the Alzheimer's plaques and tangles before they happen.

As the Daily Mail reports, the research team tested four groups of mice; the vaccinated mice experienced as much as 40% of their beta-amyloid plaques reduced and as much as 50% of their tau tangles diminished. No adverse immune response was observed.
The study explained:

We report, for the first time in an AD mouse model, that active DNA Aβ₄₂immunization into the skin targets two pathologies: amyloid-containing plaques and tau. DNA vaccination, in which not the antigen (peptide or protein) but the DNA encoding this peptide is administered, is an alternative route of vaccination. Genes encoded by the DNA are expressed within the skin, and the peptides are taken up by dendritic cells traveling to the regional lymph nodes and presenting the antigen to B and T cells. Immune responses to DNA or peptide immunization differ qualitatively.

We have shown previously that full-length DNA Aβ₄₂ trimer immunization is noninflammatory and induces a regulatory immune response. DNA Aβ₄₂ trimer immunization has been shown to be effective in removing amyloid from the brain in immunized double-transgenic mice. In the present study, we used a triple-transgenic AD mouse model that exhibits Aβ and tau pathologies characteristic of human AD. We found that immunotherapy with DNA Aβ₄₂ trimer leads to reduction of Aβ₄₀/Aβ₄₂ peptides and amyloid plaques, and we show for the first time that DNA Aβ₄₂ trimer immunization leads also to significant reduction of tau from the mouse brain.

The study concluded, “It is expected that DNA Aβ₄₂ trimer immunotherapy in a clinical trial will reduce both plaques and tangles in patients with AD.”

Dr. Roger Rosenberg, founding director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at University of Texas Southwestern, said the new vaccine “is the culmination of a decade of research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this vaccine can effectively and safely target in animal models what we think may cause Alzheimer's disease.” He added, “I believe we're getting close to testing this therapy in people.”

Study senior author Dr. Doris Lambracht-Washington said: “If the onset of the disease could be delayed by even five years, that would be enormous for the patients and their families. The number of dementia cases could drop by half.”

The study was published in the journal Alzheimer's Research and Therapy.

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New Vaccine Could Cut Number Of Alzheimer's Cases In Half